Koala Christmas

Katiedid Langrock
Fri, 04 Dec 2020 21:00:00 -0800
Lifestyle

Lately, my kids have been making a big push to move to Australia. They believe there is no COVID-19 Down Under. (Untrue.) They believe it is the birthplace of magic. (Quite possibly true.) I try to dissuade them with stories of venomous snakes and spiders the size of their heads.

"Really, Mama," they want to know, "where is your sense of adventure?"

Two years ago, my family went on a quick trip to Australia when I was working on developing a new children's show, "Berry Bees" (which last week won the Diversity Media Award for best kids series). I took my family along because I wanted to instill a passion for travel in my children — a lust for the different, unseen and unexperienced. I promised them that someday we'd come back and travel the continent properly. Perhaps I didn't think this through entirely.
Updated: Sat Dec 05, 2020

Lately, my kids have been making a big push to move to Australia. They believe there is no COVID-19 Down Under. (Untrue.) They believe it is the birthplace of magic. (Quite possibly true.) I try to dissuade them with stories of venomous snakes and spiders the size of their heads.

"Really, Mama," they want to know, "where is your sense of adventure?"

Two years ago, my family went on a quick trip to Australia when I was working on developing a new children's show, "Berry Bees" (which last week won the Diversity Media Award for best kids series). I took my family along because I wanted to instill a passion for travel in my children — a lust for the different, unseen and unexperienced. I promised them that someday we'd come back and travel the continent properly. Perhaps I didn't think this through entirely.

This week, we mark five months of our family's living in our RV. We are currently in Texas, where it's been cold. The kids have been bundled up with footie pajamas and extra blankets. I've gone to bed worried about the pipes freezing. Certainly, the image of a sunburned Santa surfing the waves on Bondi Beach outside Sydney has its appeal, but I try to ignore that fact.

I tell the kids that Australia's heat wave sounds miserable. They disagree.

I tell the kids that white sands are no match for white snow. They disagree.

I tell the kids that if Santa were to break his leg surfing, no one in the world would get Christmas gifts. We shouldn't encourage the old man to be so reckless! They worry for a moment and then decide that his magic could mend a broken leg.

I tell the kids that Christmas magic is lost if it's not celebrated in the wintertime. They roll their eyes at me and argue that my Northern Hemisphere-centric, European colonizing heritage is showing. The children may have won this round.

I was sent a link to a video with a southern Australia family finding a juvenile koala in their Christmas tree. "Tell us that's not magical," the kids said.

We watched the video over and over, a warm and fuzzy feeling growing in our bellies. The jubilant joy of the holiday season. The kids cheered each time the koala was released into the wild.

"Do you know what kind of animal was found in a Christmas tree in an American's home this year?" my son asked.

I knew the answer before he said it. He was going in for the kill.

"A snake!"

So much for the "snakes in Australia" argument. So much for the anti-Australia stance altogether.

Thanks to COVID-19, this holiday season will be like none other. We are a week out from Hanukkah and less than a month out from Christmas, Kwanzaa and New Year's. I wonder how many people will be celebrating in a place they've never celebrated before, in a way they've never celebrated before.

At Thanksgiving, my father-in-law commented over Skype that this was the first Turkey Day he had ever spent in his entire life without family. I'm guessing that was a lot of us. Perhaps this is why my argument against moving to Australia had a decidedly anti-sunburned Santa and anti-barbecue on the Yule log stance. Perhaps, after the year we've all suffered (even with the RV adventure my family has enjoyed), there is a yearning for normalcy.

In two weeks, my family will pull up to our home in Georgia, where we will stay through the holidays, embracing the same-but-different. We will light the menorah and make cookies. Instead of seeing friends and family, we will drive out to an open field to see the Christmas star. Instead of going out to our favorite holiday restaurant, we will make a hot chocolate smorgasbord. Instead of throwing our annual New Year's Eve party, we will have... uh... Hmm.

Spending the holidays in the warm Southern Hemisphere is starting to sound better by the moment. Maybe we will try it another year. After all, I wanted to instill a passion for travel in my children — a lust for the different, unseen and unexperienced. What better way than to embrace a new year in a new way?

Until then, I just ordered a stuffed koala to place inside our Christmas tree. Added bonus: We won't have to call Animal Control to come get it and release it back into the wild.